1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the field of backup and recovery of computer data.
2. Description of the Related Art
Various software tools exist for backing up a computer system and restoring the backup data to a target computer system. Such tools are provided to permit recovery from user error or hardware failure in the backed-up computer system, or other disaster situations originating outside the computer system that cause data loss such as by damaging the computer system.
One general backup and restore technique is designed to allow the target computer system to be efficiently restored to a state identical to the original computer system as the original computer system existed at the time it was backed up. The technique involves creating a backup image that includes all the data from the original computer system. The backup image may include both operating system files and other program and data files of the original computer system. In the event that it becomes necessary, the backup image may be restored to a target computer system by copying the data from the backup image to the target computer system.
Thus, after the backup image is restored to the target computer system, the target computer system may have an exact copy of the backup image. However, if the target computer system is not identical to the original computer system from which the backup image was created (e.g., if the target computer system has one or more devices that are different than the devices of the original computer system) then simply copying the backup image to the target computer system may not correctly configure the target computer system. Thus, in the case of a dissimilar system restore (e.g., where the target computer system is not identical to the original computer system), a user or administrator is generally required to perform some manual configuration of the target computer system in order to make the target computer system function correctly.
The user or administrator may be required to manually configure various types of settings on the target computer system. In particular, it is typically necessary to manually configure network settings on the target computer system in order to configure it to perform the network functions that were performed by the original computer system, e.g., so that the target computer system can make and accept network connections just as the original computer system did.
For example, consider an original computer system that executes a Windows operating system. The registry information of the original computer system may specify the network settings of a network device in the original computer system. However, the network settings may be correlated with that particular network device. If the target computer system includes a different network device then simply copying the registry information from the backup image to the target computer system may not result in the network settings being correctly correlated with the new network device in the target computer system, thus requiring a user or administrator to manually configure the network settings for the target computer system.